dear october~

it's been real.

real wonderful. 

your colors were especially fantastic this year,

 and your warm winds so welcome.

tonight the little goblins will head out to fill their

bags with candy and it feels like halloween.

coldest halloween in 8 years i've heard.

thinking back, my favorite costume when i was

little was a scary witch. 

getting in and out of the car with that

tall black hat on was no picnic though.

the favorite costume by one of my kiddos was

"captain underpants".

he was in about 10th grade when he pulled

off this debacle. i never even saw him in it, just 

heard the tales much later. 

he and his friends just would not give up the tradition of trick or treating 

and it was so cold there was snow on the ground

that cold october eve.

legend has it that his costume consisted of a cape,

tighty whiteys and sorel boots.

was that a really a costume or did the homeowners of think it

more as harassment?

i must admit i'm not even a little sad my kids are older now

and i won't be stumbling through the dark

with them trying to stay warm.

"bruhahahahahahahahahah"

so hats (witches hats) off to all you parents

of young kids

- 

may the force~ and your snowmobile suit be with you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                                                        *especially for you leslie krueger mohs

if the broom fits~ fly it!

beth

another girl's weekend goes down in history~

last weekend was the annual 

GREAT 8 

redwood falls weekend.

we all trickled in on friday night and after appetizers and quite a bit of catching

up we went out to dinner and then went back to cousin sue's where the

chatter continued into the wee hours.

saturday sue feed us and then we headed to a local park and walked around

looking at the resident animals, taking pictures and seeing the

falls that this town is named for. every other year when we've done our weekend
together it's been really cold. this year some of us wore sandals. it was gorgeous!

i kind of can't get over how an animal can hold their head

up with antlers this size. i wonder if elk have migraines?

here's the gang- minus one.

(someones gotta be the photographer- and that would be me.)

it's all about the BIG sunglasses

just can't believe how much the two daughters of my cousins add to this

group.  maddy and anna are mucho younger than the rest of us.

we range in age from 26-60. we come together with lots of

different opinions on everything, from politics and food to raising kids and

music, but we dare to be ourselves.  we laugh and we tease and we 

tease some more and we heckle. but in the end, with sore throats

from talking over each other, we hug and we profess our love,

 then we drive away with

many more great memories to store.

auntie susie climbed down the bank to hug this big tree with her nieces.

 the famous falls

 last year a clown (in costume) fell over the edge and had to be rescued.

 his clown car was parked nearby. 

*this is the truth!

i'll bet this kind of call doesn't come in to 911 very often.

 here's a picture of me.

***********

"i have a little shadow that goes everywhere with me,

and what can be the use of it is more than i can see."

after our outing i was driving one of the cars full of girls and i was following 

nancy. i didn't know my way around and didn't want to lose her so when she 

went through an intersection on a yellow light i stupidly just blew on through too!

only problem was...the light was red. completely and totally red. not green and not

yellow- not even light red. RED. as i drove through the other 3 yelled, "OH NO!!!

there is a policeman sitting right there". sure enough one of the cars at the 4 way

was a cop. i just about pulled over and got out my license, but low and behold he

just went straight! I yelled "thank you JESUS" and kept looking in the rear view mirror

wondering why he didn't pull me over. 

(maybe he was on the way to rescue another clown?)

we played a rousing game of pictionary before supper and 

it cracked me up!!! 

there was a lot of drama and screaming and the competition was stiff. at one point sue

accidentally yelled out the answer for the other team and it resulted in their whole

team having a meeting in the kitchen where she was stoned with M &M's for her

infraction.

this is my sister's drawing of an ant hill.

:  )

the final activity of the evening was each of us picking a name of one of the others and

drawing them. if you've never tried this- do it sometime. it's a hoot! no one knew who

was drawing them and when we were done we put them up on a board and

tried to figure out who was who and who had drawn them.

here they all are... i took pictures of each person with their 

caricature. some were funnier than others.

there was one that the owner named 

uncle virgil. 

she told me if i posted hers on the blog she'd hurt me.

it's in the middle row on the right.

nuff said.

hahahahahahahaha

for the photos each person tried to match the expression of their portrait.
here are a few of them.

*maddy*

*nancy*

*sue*

*me*

thank you sue for having this great idea

a few years back and bringing us together.

*it took me two days to recover.

when you're my age, staying up till one a.m. 2 nights in a row

just about kills you.

i wouldn't miss it for the world though~

xox, beth

this is so how i feel about photos.

i love every little detail in our old family photos.

please take photos friends 

and print them.

print them.

print them.

happy thursday~ what a beautiful day!

b.

i've been up north.

if you live in minnesota and your husband is 100% norwegian,

that basically means 

heading a couple hours "nort" of the twin cities.

the drive up was gorgeous

and here's a little weekend recap.

i'll pretty much let the pictures tell the story.

we share our main driveway with 2 neighbors and

the one who's lived there forever put up this

speed limit sign. as someone who tends to drive

 fast, i'm considering petitioning for the 

limit to be raised~ come on tim...how bout 20 mph?

10 feels like walking.

he's so strict. : D

(the orange is a nice touch though- so fallish)

guys, i grew these mini pumpkins and gourds in the garden!

there were still berries in the garden~

o.k.- the rest of these photos are from a walk to the end of our

long driveway. everywhere i looked there was this raw, natural beauty.

the remains of a sunflower plot

moss

this big old pine is along the driveway. don't you wonder how old it must be?

tim's cows heard me moo and were like "what you lookin at kid?"

right at the end of our driveway sits this adorable cabin. it's not ours, 

but cute? oh my goodness...notice the tree trunks that hold

up the porch roof.

the woodpile that lars and the boys have made is pretty impressive.

it's about 4 rows thick. we shouldn't be cold, come winter.

in spite of many frosts, two poppies prevailed.

this is one of the best, most beautiful falls i can remember having.

it's "my" season. 

if you practically feel like you walked down the driveway with me,

then my work here is done.

see ya later,

b.

oh you might be interested in knowing that i've now eaten bear meat.
for an extremely picky eater this was a biggie. had i not know
what i was eating, i would have just thought it was beef.
pretty surprised by that!